Community Building Partnerships Grant gets East Maitland cooking

Community Building Partnerships Grant gets East Maitland cooking

East Maitland Wesley Uniting Church recently put the new ovens in their Wesley kitchen to use for the first time. On 18 April, the church catered for the annual ANZAC night sponsored by the Rotary Club of East Maitland .

The ovens replace an older industrial sized oven. They were obtained through a NSW Government Community Building Partnerships Grant.

East Maitland Wesley Uniting Church’s Judy Hicks told Insights the replacement was much needed as part of the congregation’s busy schedule of events.

“Some 30 years ago we were given a very old industrial size oven when the kitchen at Maitland Hospital closed,” Ms Hicks recalled.

“It was very large and took up a lot of room in the kitchen, had large heavy doors, was expensive to run and there were lots of safety issues in the confined space, but it enabled us to comfortably cook baked dinners for 100 to 120 people.”

“We also have regular pie drives and could cook 250 pies in a morning,” Ms Hicks said.

“Things have slowed a bit as we are all a lot older, so our output is reduced. We still have pie drives but do it over two mornings and church and community members support us plus we buy the fruit and gramma from local farmers.”

“We have been cooking meals monthly for many years for our local Women’s Refuge, Carrie’s Place, and these are delivered freshly cooked for them to freeze and distribute to a large circle of women on their books.”

“We get asked by our local Council to cater for events and also do funerals often serving hot nibbles. Other organisations such as Red Cross, World Vision and church groups get us to cater for their events especially at Christmas time.”

East Maitland Uniting Church recently hosted a dinner, the first to use the new oven to support the Rotary Club of East Maitland, who invite Returned Service men and women to a dinner just before ANZAC Day.

Other occasions include cooking once a year for our Presbytery meeting and hosting a Retired Ministry Persons lunch for Hunter Presbytery. The next event is an annual June Hot Luncheon, which locals from other organisations and local churches attend.

For more information about Maitland East Uniting Church visit their Facebook page here.

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